


Goals Too High

by terraclara



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Meta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-01
Updated: 2012-10-01
Packaged: 2017-11-15 09:58:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/526041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/terraclara/pseuds/terraclara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas' eyes are hypnotic and Dean's goals are too high.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Goals Too High

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really not too certain about this because I've never written any meta before but here goes...!

Sometimes Dean thinks about Cas in a way that is a little less than platonic. Mostly he thinks about Cas' eyes. Castiel's eyes are, Dean muses, not eyes at all, but minuscule galaxies, and when he looks into them he can see God's universe. This is one reason Dean stares at Castiel often. Every time he looks away he feels a little more  _enlightened_ , a little more aware of the truly incredible world he resides in with seven billion other humans. He also feels a little smaller. Cas has that effect. One look from him can make Dean so, so tiny, as if Castiel's age and wisdom is crushing down on him.

Sometimes he thinks Sam does not see the wonderful swirls and spirals and  _life_  in Cas' eyes. And while Dean wishes he could, wishes Sam could look into angel eyes and be cured, a small, immature, teenage part of him says  _no, no, Cas is mine. Cas is mine, his eyes are mine._

Dean, of course, has not told Cas of his effect on him, mainly because he does not realize quite how profound the effect is, but also because he is frightened of Castiel's response. Dean does not know what he feels is fear, however. He chalks it up to strong logical and survival instincts. But he is afraid of what Cas will do if Dean tells him he is in love with him. Yes, love, because Dean has always been an all-or-nothing type of person, and Cas is completely unreachable. Dean always ends up doing that to himself, setting his goals so high he is bound to fail. And then, in the aftermath, when he drinks maybe one more beer than he should and Sam doesn't comment on it even though he notices, Dean tells himself that he will never reach his goals, that he is stuck, that he will never succeed and shouldn't try. And yet, he does try, and he does succeed, even though his aspirations are too far away. He does succeed; he just doesn't meet those too-far-to-reach goals. So truly, when he thinks about it, he hasn't really gotten anywhere. Maybe he kept Sam safe eight times in nine days, but he still got hurt one of those days so Dean has failed.

Obviously these unrealistic goals extend to Castiel. Dean doesn't want to ever hurt Cas, but he does, and he doesn't want to ever fail Cas, but he does, so Dean is a failure. Dean is the one up late at night sharpening knifes or cleaning guns so he can protect Sam and protect Cas even though both can fend for themselves, but he never realizes how much work he puts into keeping the ones he loves safe. Even if he did realize, he would shrug it off and think  _I could do more_ and then every failure he's had will come back in lists and keep him up at night.

It's much easier to recall failures than wins, because the failures are the ones that leave a scar on Sam's arm or rip on Cas' sleeve. Even when Dean can no longer see the evidence, he knows it's there, and it reminds him of every time Sam has gotten hurt since he was six months old and Dean  _could have saved him._

Dean wonders what his life would be like now if Cas had never appeared, and he doesn't like what he discovers. He knows that without Cas, if Sam had died, he would be close to dead, probably an alcoholic, a lowlife. But he did meet Cas, Sam is alive, and for now Dean is okay.

It really all started with the first day he met Cas, and the first time he got close enough to Dean that he could see those swirling galaxies in his irises. But of course there is more to Cas than his eyes. Dean, in life and when he is working a job, tends to fixate on one thing. Sometimes it's the tiny clue on a cadaver that eventually leads to the monster, sometimes it's how Sam's fingers twitch when Dean mentions Ruby, sometimes it's how Cas' eyes are endless, and are all angel eyes like that? Dean likes to think not, likes to fantasize that Castiel is one-of-a-kind, the last, the first, the all. Because truly, Cas  _is_  his all, and Dean is closer every day to admitting it. He imagines an entire spectrum of responses, but the only one he doesn't consider is the one that's true. That happens to Dean a lot, too, working a job and not knowing what he's fighting until the very end. Mostly, that's thanks to Bobby. Bobby tells him everything he needs to know, and sometimes Dean thinks he knows everything. Bobby doesn't know what Cas' response would be if Dean came clean, however. Or, maybe he does, because it seems everyone around Dean knows about his fascination with Castiel, even though Dean himself is so afraid to admit it he would rather watch John Winchester die again. He loved John, of course, but he loves Cas more. That scares him a lot. He loves Castiel as much as he loves Sam.

So, sometimes Dean looks at Cas longer than is necessary, and sometimes his words jumble and trip over each other and never really get to where they were going because he glanced at Castiel and that's not his fault at all because Castiel really shouldn't look at him like that. Dean doesn't realize Cas is returning the expression he is sending.

Because, if Dean were to say  _I love you_ , Castiel would say  _I love you, too._

 


End file.
